Burlington County Times
February 03, 2010
Watching much of what passes for government these days can be an agonizing experience. A particularly hard kick in the stomach is the automatic cost-of-living pay raise the members of Congress receive every year unless they specifically vote to turn it down.
Obviously, the lawmakers wrote the pay law with the "negative approval" provision for a reason: It's a lot easier politically to do nothing and have your salary go up than to have to vote yourself an increase. An attack of conscience prompted the members to rescind a 2.1 percent pay hike for fiscal year 2010, but prior to that, increases mostly in the 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent range had taken effect in eight consecutive years, according to Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy.
The base annual salary for a member of the House and Senate is $174,000; members in leadership positions get more. Add in all the perks our elected federal officials get and they make a much better living than most of the people they represent. Yet once again, Congressional salaries will be on the table when the budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year is put together, and once again it will be up to congressmen and senators to pass on any increase. It might be too much to expect them to surprise us two years in a row.
Murphy and his local colleague John Adler, D-3rd of Cherry Hill, want to take any decision on a pay hike out of Congress' hands. They are co-sponsoring legislation that would eliminate automatic pay adjustments for members and have sent Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter urging her to "do everything within your power" to stop an automatic raise for fiscal year 2011.
The idea of paying members of Congress more each year just for showing up is anathema. If they were paid on the basis of results, as is the case in much of the private sector, they would be just as deserving of an automatic reduction in pay. These days, with so many people struggling with pay cuts or pink slips - and with even senior citizens deprived of their Social Security cost-of-living increase this year - there should be no mention of a pay raise for Congress. Almost no one else, other than Wall Street fat cats, is looking forward to more money. Besides, you can make a very strong argument that the members of Congress have done nothing that warrants their being rewarded on pay day.
We're right there with Adler and Murphy on this one. Whether you view their legislation as an election-year gimmick or not, doing away with the automatic pay raise is the right thing to do.
